


zeroes and ones

by Control_Room



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Corruption, Gen, Illustrated, Multiverse, Panic, Self depreciation, Self-Hatred, deleted character, falling in love with yourself is bad, gaster type scenario, many of one person, meta awareness, my art, quote un quote johan, uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17063336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room
Summary: Johan Ramirez might have been too clever for his own good, discovering that his entire world was made up of ones and zeroes.There were thousands of versions of himself, all going by Joey Drew, of course, and millions of worlds to explore, and no rules aside from don't mess with the coding.Well.When everyone is blaming you, you want to be rid of the problem.When you live in a world that wants you deleted, you delete it first.





	1. a hole in the coding

**Author's Note:**

> magenta is [halfusek](https://halfusek.tumblr.com/) (on tumblr)'s joey
> 
> might find more joeys to mess around with magenta's head a bit more :)  
> also may be written out of order?

He had gone dimension hopping.

He did not expect anything to go wrong.

He met hundreds of versions of himself.

He met thousands of timelines and learned the differences and similarities between them.

Some Lindas were married to Henry. Some were his sister. And some, like in his own world, she was his daughter.

It was confusing.

Some Henrys were kind and forgiving. Some were wry and pessimistic. And some, but very few, and including the one in his life, he was a smug thinker.

But of all the people he came across again and again, there was one that was the most confounding.

Himself.

Each iteration he found of himself bore less and less alikeness to himself – most were arrogant, greedy, and prideful.

He felt out of place.

In all the Joeys, there was no one like himself – a runaway from home, a man filled with hopes rather than dreams, easily embarrassed but can put on a big show, scarred and happy, falling in love every moment and scared of acceptance and not rejection.

No one fit him, either.

He met himself hundreds of millions of times.

He spent little time in his own dimension.

Why should he? No one loved him there, no one cared.

It was better to explore and ignore the feeling that he had no home.

He hoped.

It didn’t work.

He scrubbed at his face, taking off his pink glasses and wiping them on his shirt. He was in his office, the one in his own world, and it felt wrong.

He wasn’t good enough to sit in this desk.

So he got up and opened a portal, stepping through it and letting himself fall into another world.

He really should just give up and go somewhere quiet to slowly die.

That’s what he was doing while he was dimension hopping.

He stepped out of the portal and into another Joey’s office, and hoped this one could be the one he was looking for.

He was looking for someone to kill him.

He was looking to commit suicide, but by another version of himself’s hands.

He hoped this one, as he jolted up with a stare when he introduced himself, would be the one to get rid of him.

It worked, but in the wrong way.

Looks could kill.

Especially good ones.

Magenta was no exception.

As he shook hands with this alternate version of himself while explaining his portals, he noted how handsome he was.

And was immediately taken aback by his own thoughts.

He could not be thinking this way.

This was himself.

He shoved the idea into the darkest pits of hell of his mind.

Unfortunately for himself, that was where his thoughts tended to wander.

Normally he returned to a dimension once or twice, just to see how the timeline was going for them, but this… this Joey… Magenta, he called himself… Johan found himself going back, and going back, and going back.

There was something addictive about him.

Johan couldn’t tell what it was and it terrified him.

And fascinated him.

What was it?

Was it his demeanor? Was it his actions? Was it him as a person, how he became who he was?

Or was Johan just in love again?

That scared him more than anything.

Rejection after rejection was his story in love, and he did not want to fall in love with himself.

Even he could understand that that would be a awkward and mortifying calamity.

In addition to that, Magenta, like himself, was in love with Henry, his version of Henry, who, Johan admitted, was beautiful in his own light, with rough around the edges features but a softness in his eyes. He was funny and charming and soft spoken, a perfect sheath for Magenta’s wry humor, charisma, and passion.

But this Henry was married to Linda.

To Johan the thought was just plain strange.

The Henry of his own world had been married to two women, one named Eleanor whom he had Linda with, and who later succumbed to the cancer eating away at her, and the other Diane.

Johan was his best man with a shattering heart at Henry’s wedding to that woman.

And then his comforter when she abandoned him.

Now Henry was happy with himself and his daughter, and didn’t need Johan.

So he went around the dimensions.

Time and time again he found himself in Magenta’s office.

This time Magenta was pissed.

Not at Johan.

But at Linda.

How dare she!? How dare she steal him!? From his job, from his dream, from  _their_ life!?

Waking up in the wrong Joey’s office after drinking with him the whole night was disastrous.

He gripped his head and groaned.

“Hungover, Johan?”

Magenta’s voice thudded against his ears, and he groaned, pushing his head back onto the soft surface he had woken up against, rubbing his face against fabric that smelled vaguely of cheap cologne and mismade coffee splashed with whiskey and ink.

He tried opening his eyes, but found the light was too bright against them.

Where were his glasses?

The pink usually helped with adjusting to lights.

Instead he whimpered a bit, gripping whatever cloth was beneath him to attempt to quell his pounding headache.

It was knit.

It was nice and reminded him of something or someone.

It was magenta.

It was Magenta.

Johan’s head shot up to stare at him, lips parting in a murmur of his name.

Magenta smiled, no,  _smirked_ , down at him.

The blush was all over his face. Oh god, he was blushing again, and he couldn’t think of any bullshit pathological lie to cover it.

“Slept well?”

“I… um… I th-think so?” His breathing was speeding up, and he swallowed to force it down. He studied Magenta, his tired eyes that were so sad but would never admit it, his actual terrifying void of hair that Johan had discovered was a version of limbo, so soft to the touch, and incredible to smell, the near godly slope of his jawline, the thin curves marking his ever grinning lips, his expressive brow and becoming nose, and his elegant mustache, similar to his own but almost glowing with its owners haughty but flattering style.

He wanted to kiss him, and hated himself for it.

He wanted to make him happy, and was perplexed by that.

He wanted the best for him, and his heart hurt.

He did not understand how things worked.

He was young, far younger than many of the Joeys he had come to know.

He was too young, he accepted this.

He was in love, and he did not want to be.

He did not want to be in love with himself.

“Magenta?”

He despised the way his voice cracked and shattered.

“Yes?”

He did not want to be in love with himself, because that meant he would have to love who he was as well.

He did not want to like who Johan Ramirez was.

“Am I broken?”

“Br-broken?” this time Magenta studied him with concern, hoping it was just a question but found no sign of lying. “Of course not! Where’s this coming from?”

“I’m so sorry… I can’t tell you,” Johan felt the tears building up in his eyes, the eyes he gazed at the gorgeous and confident man with, the eyes he felt did not deserve to see his beauty. He got off of Magenta, scrubbing at them, locating his glasses and pushing them on, barely able to summon the energy to change the office door into a portal. He froze, inhaling hard. “I… I’ll see you around.”

“When?”

“… soon.”

Time passed.

Days. Weeks. Months.

Magenta was getting sick of waiting.

What was Johan’s problem?

Why was he avoiding him?

He searched for the method Johan used for creating portals.

He found it.

He stared at the swirling abyss, sucked in a breath, and stepped into it, and found himself falling, falling, falling, and the names of so many of him flashed a glowing yellow overhead, Hyde Drew, Snowy Drew, Johann Drew, all of them Drews until Ramirez. He slowed himself just because he wanted to. He had no clue how this worked, but found a multitude of Joeys standing outside this one of them’s door. The light was off, unlike nearly all of them.

“Do you think he’s dead?” one Joey asked with worry.

“Maybe he committed suicide,” another chuckled.

Magenta rolled his eyes and shoved past them all.

“Johan, open this door right now!”

“I… no.”

“I will smash my way into there.”

“Please… just leave. All of you, all of me, I don’t fucking know anymore. Going into others’ worlds was a mistake I  _won’t_ be repeating.”

“No, I know, I just know, that this one is between you and me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If all of the others leave, will you talk to me?”

“M-may… yes. I will.”

“You heard the man!” Magenta turned to the other Joeys who stared in surprise. “Shoo!”

They all filed back slowly, the worlds spinning in that odd cylindrical twisting returning them each to the dimension they belonged in.

“Are they gone?”

“Yeah.”

Johan opened the door hesitantly.

His gaze was trained on the floor as he let Magenta in, his eyes red from crying out of pure self hatred and loathing.

Magenta wasted no time in confronting him.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” he accused. Johan bit his lip, blushing and lowering his head in shame. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I… I’m sorry,” Johan sighed, shivering. “I never should have ignored this. I have… a confession, if you will, to make.”

“And that is?”

“I’m in love.”

“Oh? Well, congratulations, but what does this have to do with me?”

“Fuck! I’m in love with you, and I hate it! I love you so much, I want you to be happy, but I don’t want myself to be happy! I’m lost and confused, and… and I’m so sorry.”

Magenta stared at him with a blank expression, questioning how anyone could be in love with  _him_ of all people.

Johan  _knew_ Magenta was disgusted with him - after all, he was.

Anybody would be.

Magenta was so much better than he could ever be.

“You’re intelligent and handsome,” Johan sighed, listing off what he had fallen in love with. “You’re sly but with some care. You’re bold, precise, and charismatic. You’re so gorgeous, your body is like aphrodite’s to my eyes, and  _your_ eyes are like the snare of sirens.

Magenta’s brow furrowed, staring at the younger version of himself.

“You’re encouraging and bolstering, and your dreams are loftier than the highest attentions of all kings, and beyond those kings, you possess all the beauty and grace any of them could have ever had.

Johan was openly crying at this point.

“I want you to be happier than anything…” Johan covered his face. “I know I’m sick and fucked up for wanting to love you, for being in love with you, but I can’t help it.”

Silence.

“Please say you hate me. Please hurt me. Please hit me. Please, please, I can’t be the only one that hates me… please, Magenta, hate me.”

“Even if I would want to, I don’t think I’d be able to,” he shook his head, finally able to respond. “Quite frankly, you’re too… innocent to be hated.”

“Everyone in my dimension hates me,” he muttered. “Why can’t you!? You even have a reason! I’m a worthless slut who’s in love with you, a  _god_!”

“Johan, yo-”

“Disgusting! A freak! Useless!” he shouted, tears simmering hotly in his already puffy eyes. “You’re beautiful, and fall in love with normal people, not yourself, and you run your company well! I can hardly keep this place moving, and no one wants me in charge! I’m going to loose my legs, and with them, my life! Polio! Fuck! I hate me! But… at the same time, at the same time I want to die because I’m so fucked up… I love you. I’m so so sorry.”

“I don’t think you’re broken,” Magenta quietly said, ending their conversation from months before. The dam in Johan’s eyes broke, and he sobbed, rushing to him and hugging him tightly as he wept. “I’m flattered you… you like me… but I don’t think… that we work for each other.”

“I understand,” Johan whispered, his thin arms tightening around him. “I really do.”

“Please don’t hate yourself.”

“Same goes for you.”

Neither spoke.

“I’ll see you around?” Magenta smiled sadly as he pulled back from the hug, Johan looking down at him emptily with a forced grin and a shrug. “I’ve gotta go now.”

“Alright.”

Johan sounded distant.

They never saw each other right again, never as who they had been, ever again, only as who they became.

The glowing sign outside his door reading “Johan Ramirez” was mutilated by an axe, replaced with “NOTHING” repeatedly.

Magenta had killed and destroyed and created monstrosities.

There was nothing left of Johan.

He was nothing, he never existed.

He never existed, smashing into the coding that formed all the worlds and tearing his story to shreds.

There was a void that all the other Joeys felt.

It was really nothing though.

There was nothing, and no Johan Ramirez.


	2. erased bit by bi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if yall have any joeys of your own you'd like to see here, chat with me on [tumblr](insane-control-room.tumblr.com)!

Magenta saw him another time. **  
**

He had never expected to see him again, so he greeted him happily.

Until he took in his features and recoiled.

He was all wrong, no innocuous and gentle smile, no softness in his once amber, now blood red, eyes, no childlike hope in his demeanor, he was… corrupted. No other word could describe the jolting, wavering madness that Johan became.

His smile, originally adorably too big for his face, was now a beaming reveal of all things twisted and ruined, nothing was right about him.

Stark white teeth put him at unease.

Johan was no longer himself.

Magenta was not scared of him, but terrified of what he turned into.

Resentful. Insane. Cruel.

He grinned at him.

“Hello, Magenta. Or Half’s Joey. You’re not your own, you know.”

Magenta did not reply, more furiously trying to process what had happened.

Johan giggled.

“I was Control’s. Oh, but  _they’re_ not in control anymore, are you?”

He snapped through the world, flicking suddenly to be right before him.

“I’m a glitch in the system now.”

He smiled softly, a horrific copy of a once beautiful gesture.

He pressed a kiss to Magenta’s forehead. Magenta’s eyes widened and gasped as he saw numbers and numbers, zeros and ones.

They disappeared when thin lips left his forehead.

Johan was grinning at him, but in his eyes there was a panic.

His grin cracked and broke.

It sprang back instantly.

His hands twitched, jolting and flickering.

His eyes had static passing through them rapidly.

He was not breathing.

He was not blinking.

Nothing was human about him anymore.

Before, he had been all too human, with love for life, kindness to everyone, joy for other’s success and happiness, sorrow for all pains that afflict a person, and now… now he was a monstrosity, a machine, what he always hated and feared he would become.

He was grinning at Magenta blankly.

“Johan?”

“M-M-Mag-g-g-g-en-en-ent-ta?” his voice was quiet and lost, like a scratched record. His face seemed to concentrate, a sharp pain suddenly seizing him. He groaned in the pain, and it’s accompanying ethereal feeling of being deleted bit by bit. “Magen….”

He sank slowly, and as he fell, he collapsed onto Magenta.

There were only zeroes and ones covering every inch of him, his hair, his skin, his clothes.

ERROR swirled around him, flashing and vanishing and reappearing, his form remaking himself constantly and wretchedly.

“Are… are you okay?” Magenta forced, knowing the man clearly was not, but not knowing what to do. Johan groaned again, flickering brightly. “Can you talk?”

“I fucked up,” he rasped, not laughing, not smiling, in pain and anguish. His voice was distant and near, cracking and smooth, ripped and corrupted, black tears filled with ones escaping his terrified and empty eyes. “I can’t remember who I am… and it’s all my fault… I can’t remember my name. All I can remember is Joey Drew, and that… that name isn’t mine… mine was something else, and I can’t remember….”

His eyes went static, and the ERRORs were replaced with RESETTINGs. He stood straight, mechanically, and as his hands left Magenta the numbers blanketing him vanished.

He was grinning again.

“Reset complete,” was a monotone that emitted from him, but not from his lips. “Joey Drew.”

Magenta was not afraid of him. He was horrified at what had happened to him.

“Johan?”

_Please reply…_

“Error four zero four, request ‘Johan’ non existent,” drawled the emotionless man. A spasm shattered his form and rebuilt it. A high pitched noise suddenly filled the room, like a knife slowly being twisted in an ear, so loud and painful that Magenta shrank back and covered his ears. Johan’s face went blank, as though trying to recall long forgotten information. “System error, code 1932, file ‘Johan’ corrupted. Unreadable. Attempt to recover file ‘Johan’? ‘Y’ slash ‘N’ question mark.”

“Why?” he asked, mostly the air, pleading for an answer.

“Recovery attempt confirmed.”

The sound stopped slowly and Johan slackened, almost gently being lowered near Magenta. His face was void, his lips parted and not breathing, and his eyes were static filled and empty. As he was easing back to a limp form, moments from falling to the ground, Magenta scooped him into his arms, never being one for touch, but Johan was erased or removed and something was very wrong with him.

The numbers returned the moment he touched him.

He dropped onto the shorter (by a few centimeters) man, a shuddering exhale escaping him.

“What is happening?” he breathed, black tears dripping out of his eyes, feeling the digits comprising him vanish part by part. “Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean to do this….”

“What did you do?!” Magenta panicked, desperate to help him. “Tell me!”

“I deleted everything…” he gasped, shaking against Magenta. “My world is gone, but I should have put it on a timer….”

“G-gone? Deleted?” Magenta’s head hurt from trying to understand what was happening, what had happened. “What do you mean? How can I help you, please, a sign, a hint….”

“Everything is made of ones and zeros…” he moaned, “At least, where I’m from, your world… your’s is different… but I found my world… if it didn’t exist, then I wouldn’t be able to fuck it all up… oh no, no no no… I erased it all, but since I was in the mainframe, it couldn’t delete me… I’m a virus now, a bug, a glitch… and I’m being torn apart… all of this… all of me… it’s fake, it’s all numbers… it’s an illusion of living….”

He jolted against the man holding him fast in a hug. He buzzed through him, clawing desperately at empty air, groaned, and thudded to the floor. Magenta spun around to face him, crouching beside him, frantically trying to piece together an idea of what to do. Johan merely smiled at him, closing his static filled eyes. Magenta grabbed his hand, the solid mass horrifically light weighted, covered in numbers, and fading away. Johan’s fingers vaporized to drift between Magenta’s, solidifying to become intertwined with his fingers, the denseless skin squeezing softly as a comfort to them both. He looked at him, not with anger nor with emptiness, but with anguished love and devotion.

He shakily brought each of Magenta’s knuckles, between his, to his lips, brushing them softly.

“I just had to see you one last time.”

Then he kissed the back of his hand, black tears of ones dripping down his lashes of binary digits.

“No, please,” Magenta whimpered, tears filling his eyes painfully at Johan’s fate. “We can fix this, please don’t say that….”

“Adieu, mi amor,” whatever sane part was left of Johan whispered tenderly, still kissing his hand as though it were his only anchor to life, his breath coming in puffs of airy, wheezing, laughter. “Adiós, mi Magenta.”

There was a bright flash of lulling cyan, soft yellow, and a painful magenta, the colors filled with numbers, matrices, and codes, and they ripped out from Johan through Magenta’s story-like dimension.

ERROR ERROR ERROR

ERROR: RESET; CODE-1932, LOST FILE ‘JOHAN’ REPLACED IN PROPER FOL _ **C͏̡͡O̷̡͝R̸̡R̸͞U͜PT̶͏I͜O͢͠N̸͝ ҉W̕A̴̛R̵NING҉͢**_

Magenta did not know why he was crouched on his knees, bending down near the ground.

He could not tell why his fingers were barely parted, as though something had been between them, or why his hands felt hot, icy, light, and horribly heavy at the same time.

He knew that he never would be able to understand why he felt hot tears tracking down his face.

There was a gap in him, like some crucial knowledge was… erased.

That word,  _erased_ , fit all too well with a sinking feeling.

A terrible feeling.

Something was wrong and missing.

A name.

He couldn’t remember the other’s name.

 _Who_ was missing?


End file.
